What is pneumonic plague and how does it spread?

'She knew she had something really important on her hands': Rosalind Franklin figured out DNA's helical structure before Watson and Crick, study suggests

'She knew she had something really important on her hands': Rosalind Franklin figured out DNA's helical structure before Watson and Crick, study suggests Rosalind Franklin knew about DNA's double-helix structure ahead of Watson and Crick, a new study of her photos and notes reveals. Rosalind Franklin, whose photographs of the molecular structure of DNA led to a 1962 Nobel Prize for three other scientists, knew that her famous images held the secret of the double helix, new research suggests.

Shoes may change the structure of our ankle bones

Wearing shoes is linked to slight structural changes to the spongy bone of our ankles. This discovery affects our understanding of how human walking evolved, as fossils have often previously been compared to the ankle bones of modern, shoe-wearing people. But studying modern humans who don’t routinely wear shoes offers a “window into the past” as to how our extinct human relatives moved, says Zewdi Tsegai at the University of Chicago.

The telescope that could reveal what dark matter and dark energy are

The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we dive into fascinating ideas from around the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time here.

Neutrino physicist wins 2026 Nobel Physics Prize